Q 01/05

How does Rene Gallimard's story end in the final scene of David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly?

A) He is pardoned

B) He escapes to China

C) He stabs himself

D) He marries Song

Answer · why

C) He stabs himself

He stabs himself, dying exactly as the heroine does in the opera he adores. By then he has dressed as her, completing the play's reversal of roles.

Q 02/05

The real couple behind M. Butterfly, Bernard Boursicot and Shi Pei Pu, first met in Beijing at what kind of event?

A) An opera performance

B) A Christmas party

C) A diplomatic banquet

D) A university lecture

Answer · why

B) A Christmas party

A Christmas party at the French embassy brought them together in December 1964. Shi arrived dressed as a man and only later claimed to be a woman in d...

Q 03/05

Rene Gallimard in M. Butterfly is unaware that female roles in traditional Beijing opera were long played by whom?

A) Male actors

B) Palace eunuchs

C) Masked puppeteers

D) Teenage girls

Answer · why

A) Male actors

Male actors took the women's parts because women had been banned from the stage. That tradition is what lets Song Liling's disguise pass for twenty ye...

Q 04/05

John Lone, the Song Liling of the 1993 M. Butterfly film, had earlier played the title role in which Oscar-winning epic?

A) Farewell My Concubine

B) The Joy Luck Club

C) Raise the Red Lantern

D) The Last Emperor

Answer · why

D) The Last Emperor

The Last Emperor cast him as Puyi from the age of 18 into his sixties. Trained in Chinese opera as a child in Hong Kong, he did his own singing as Son...

Q 05/05

In David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly, the French diplomat Rene Gallimard has been convicted of which crime?

A) Murder

B) Treason

C) Bigamy

D) Forgery

Answer · why

B) Treason

Treason is the charge, because he passed classified documents to China through his lover, Song Liling. The trial turns him into a laughingstock around...